There was once a day you could get some good, and good looking, gear out of level 60 end-game instances. That’s when you ran them. The Molten Core “Tier 1” sets and then Onyxia, Ragnaros, and Blackwing Lair for the “Tier 2” stuff.

Now there’s a new shot at Level 70 versions of it. Well, some of it. Well, the helms.

The “I’m a rabid dog, and these keep me from scratching my ears” or “Halp, my head is stuck in a bear trap!” Warrior helm out of Molten Core is available. And the Dragonstalker Hunter’s helm, and the Helm of Ten Storms Shaman’s helm from Onyxia as well. (And the Rogue and Druid helms too.) And for running a few quick quests in Shadowmoon Valley. You’ll need a flying mount, and a tank, but otherwise it’s easy enough.

The quest chain involves TeronGorefiend. You’re first stop, for the Horde(!), is Chief Apothecary Hildagard in Shadowmoon Valley. He sends you out to get 15 ash piles. Sooo easy. Just fly south out of the village and collect them along the green goo coastline. (They look like little volcanoes spewing green clouds.) If you want to collect fast, fight some stuff. If you don’t want to fight, no problem either. There’s a lot of it out there.

Next step is to kill ghosts. You’ll be given some “Spectrecles” to see them. And, dang, if you aren’t already surrounded by the ghosts right there in the village. Kill a dozen why don’t you. They don’t aggro and you won’t see them, even with the Spectrecles on, if you’ve killed them and completed that part of the quest.

Next stop Hildagard sends you out to find an “Ancient Shadowmoon Spirit”. Some alter on the edge of the world and there’s this ghost. He wants three things from you. TeronGorefiend’s old Cloak, Truncheon, and Armor. The Cloak is easy to solo. There’s some ghost clerics around, one of which has it. They don’t run from the fight, they don’t cast anything, and they’ve spread themselves out enough so you can fight them one at a time.

The Truncheon is a little more difficult, and you’ll want a friend. It’ll drop from some so-called Ghostriders. (Or you can come back to your lifeless corpse, rez, and loot the one that you did manage to kill by yourself.) They ride the road that runs in a circle around the Hand of Gul’dan. Take the road and you’ll run into them. (Or plant yourself and they’ll run into you.)

The last part, the Armor. Oh, noes! Five-man! Yeah, yeah. Like Dimensius the All-Devouring required five too. Yeah, right. Something about being a Protection Tank, if you know that you’ve got healing around, you feel like, no, you know, you’re invincible. Msaker took Droonda, DPS Shaman Princess, and Nachmahd, Shaman Healer, and figured we were good. We flew to the highest peak where Vhel’kur was circling around. He’s got the Gorefiend’s armor.

What he doesn’t have is a cleave, nor a kickback, nor an aoe attack. This is a pure “spank and tank” exercise. He hits hard, but nothing a RestoShammy can’t handle. And with Droonda cranking out DPS we got our armor in no time. Oh, yes, I’ve read some notes about pulling to an area, clearing out some of those flayers… Nuts to that. We three huddled on the very peak of that mountain and fought him standing still. Our battleground for this fight was like a square meter large. (Orcs are metric. Check the lore.)

Then it was back to the “ancient spirit” to whom you turn in TeronGorefiend’s gear. Psyche! You’ve been punked! That was no innocent “Ancient Shadowmoon Spirit!” That was TeronGorefiend himself. And he’s got one last trick to play on you. He makes you take control of him to defeat a big Draenei called Karsius the Ancient Watcher. You get a pet/minion bar with an attack button and some abilities. Trick is to use every ability as soon as the cooldown is over. I use OmniCC and I get actual numbers counting down on my buttons. This is a godsend. Anyway, for this fight, Karsius appears. I moved a little closer, and then dropped the aoe with Karsius at the outside edge and me on the opposite edge. That way when he moves in to me he’s still in the aoe. Then I drop the shield, and then I drain the life. Repeat each as it’s cooldown ends. Easy. And, woots, I, and Droonda and Nachmahd, returned to Hildagard to collect our reward. Our reward for releasing a revived TeronGorefiend onto an unsuspecting world again. (What’s wrong with this picture? Black Temple raiders should be rewarding me for freeing him so he can drop loot for them.)

Msaker got his Molten Core helm. Droonda took the Shaman helm. Her eyepatch from the Blade’s Edge Mountains was better AP then the hunter’s helm. And her headband of Simmonz from Nagrand was better healing. What the Shaman’s helm provides her is some spell damage. And some very cool looks.

Then we watched some fireworks.

Then Blackhoof came out. He recruited some guildies, including a warrior to tank, hunter and rogue to dps, and we did the same thing. Some glitches. Even though I was wearing the Spectrecles, I could not see the dragon. When he attacked I did not see him. I could heal my guildies, but could not see him. In fact, being a little confused, our warrior died. And I could out-of-combat rez him, and did. And he kept fighting. And then they stopped fighting. WTF? I unequipped the Spectrecles. And then reequipped them. Dead dragon at my feet. Looted it for the armor. Sweet. I took the Shaman helm because it’s slightly better than the headpiece I was wearing from Blade’s Edge. And in the Battlegrounds a little more spell damage never hurt.

And, damn it, it’s about time Onyxia gave up a Shaman Helm for me. Even if I had to wait a year and a half to get it, and after seeing and then killing a different dragon.